The wheat fields have nothing to say to me
I received a surprise, an email from an old flame who asked for a meet up. The trick for me, then, is to come up with what would be the absolutely crudest and cruelest response back for that past due flicker.
Readily: 1) no reply; 2) prickly favorites like "pass" or "no thanks"; or 3) a more deliberated explanation. Or some another drawn out come back.
I love another's. Optional different ways to say (or not say) the same or different things.
Why, oh why, now? Which is a prosaic way to approach the matter. And it's a shady smokescreen because I would bet she was probably drunk off her bored ass, hit with some type of personal or professional complication, and/or overcooked with nostalgia. Which is not to say that I am an enemy of the common folk.
I should say upfront I still very much, uh, love her. I'll get back to this. Don't worry.
Common people, among other things, dig – overdig – nostalgia. And I made a crack on it, because well, nostalgia ain't my bag. It betrays reality. Or at least clear vision. A
clumsy conversation about the state of the state via the economic crisis I had with a friend led to an accusation of me of, well, I thought it was a perversion of outlandish optimism but now, I think more correctly, gross inconsideration.
My friend was confessing the potential dire personal and professional aftershocks for herself and her friends due to the market seism, which I then returned that the financial meltdown was hooey. She soured; my answer came off, to her, too offhanded. I shifted to justifications that the crisis is somewhat exaggerated, should be short-lived and recovery forth comes. Which she mocked. Which is why I felt her stung reaction was that I was too blind in my rosy outlooks, too readily asserting things will get better soon. How do you know?, she
quizzed. I don't but I hope so, I
non-assured. Hope?, she flabbergasted.
More clarification was that was how cycles work: up, down, up, down, repeat. By some accounts, the government's manipulation seems to be working. There was a consumer credit and housing bubble, and systemic failures/fraud by financial/governmental institutions exponentially compounded the mistakes. Too much too easily created cash that sought more too easily created cash. But some of the growth were real, as the fundamental business productivities and innovations were real. I don't know, extreme shortsightedness or instant gratification leanings would judge the current situation as only disaster. I don't know, reining back runaway exuberance should not be unwelcome. Yeah, nothing is immune to catastrophe - which this may end up being, and protract - but it's not fever drunk optimism to see a painful rebalancing as a reset for a squarer foundation, and, likely, a return to renewed irrational uptick soon. The fed fund rate is 1% now. 1. freakin. percent.1
But that was not what she was getting at. Her annoyance stemmed, maybe, from the tone more than the substance of my response. Or, let's say, after extrapolating whatever substance from the ill-received "hooey", I did not overthrow her primary peeved reaction, which I think is absolutely valid: regardless of the historical imperative in an eventual recovery, there is still a human cost - or immediate cost - that I too lightly regard, which is to say she is fair in her denunciation of me for a bright-line insensitivity for others. Which I have no argument against. Not quite.
My crack was intentionally - perhaps not obvious enough - outrageous. I followed it up challenging her to name one sap who was detrimentally effected, say lost his or her job. She could not. Which she at once threw back at me for absurdly requiring a live physical specimen before seeing the situation on the ground (or wallet) for what it is. Well, the bottom
line is I do not give a shit about the fickle twenty/thirty-something mobs shaken by the latest economic shakedown. Years ago, my family only benefited from the trickle-down eighties when one of the haves flushed their toilet, then I was too young to do much in the tech/internet heydays, and more recent, I will still blame youth/inexperience for staying on the sideline through the new century's housing bubble, and you know what?, through it all, with the collapses, downsizes and downturns interwoven, my family/friends/colleagues and myself scraped and scratched by, so that overall things ended up ok. Maybe dread over being modern day Evans cover models ala a Let Us Now Praise Famous Yuppies spook the bend and break confidences of some young folks, but the force of history shows things work out.2 Not that I cannot fore/see the - I'll be cynical - inconvenience or alarm many do/will/might experience from a steep economic cliff dive, yet to those with a perpetual sense of entitlement or rigid tunnel vision for the now, things really are not and will not be that bad.3
Now, for old folks who have seen their retirement expectations materially rocked? - yeah, it does suck.
Which still means getting caught up and worked up in the moment, even an epic disastrous moment, distorts perspective. Let's put it this way, Kipling starts a reliable poem of his with, "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs," and continues:
The ongoing downward spiral may suggest lost head territory and its accompanying mayhem and despair. Yet, these are also times of opportunity and transformation. Not only in the cutthroat sense of the stoney Continental aphorism: "Buy when blood runs in the street."5 Though I prefer the Omaha hayseed variation: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful;"6 which adds the counterintuitive but rather commonsensical bonus that caution be purposeful not only when heads are rolling, but also the opposing extreme of heady brashness.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on a turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss.4
No, I refer to opportunity and transformation in the sense that well, why not. New
directions, new focus, renewed focus, self evaluation, etc. For the bougie overclass, along with "how bad will it get?", additional questions, I think pertinent, are: "is it really that bad?" and "is it bad?" And I don't even mean it in the dry/fester/stink/crust/sag vs explode dichotomy, though it can mean that; no, I mean it in a more anarchism, mysticism, Earth Mother orientation. Which, life in the woods wise is probably even less for everyone than the conventional and straightforward "it's crazy, it seems it'll never let up, / but please, you got to keep your head up" message. But the race makes us rats, right? I am not pimping that is (only) how life should be lived - radical, pagan, and on a brown rice and sprouts diet, but those are pertinent questions. Otherwise, yes, I'm saying keep your heads, brothers and sisters.7
I finished 1919 by John Dos Passos. I should first say that it fills me with a terrible sadness to imagine I might complete JDP's shitty USA Trilogy before picking up the next volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. Sadness and self loathing, actually. I have no clue why expressing so
was necessary.8 Going through JDP's first and recently second volumes reinforces to me the limits of experimental writing, or of the stream of conscious ilk: a bit tedious, which includes a self-seriousness, and lent a little too cheaply to sallow parody. I am not denying it takes a special kind of guts, tirelessness and/or rigour to, first of all, write the Newsreel and Camera Eye segments, but to put it in the draft and publish draft, goodness, that takes a cake. At the same time, it's also not all that interesting. To be clearer, the Newsreel portions are snippets, incomplete or often disjointed fragments from, I assume, of the period headlines, news clips, pop tunes and advertisements; the Camera Eye's are strictly loose "automatic" unconscious-ish ramblings captured; get it, camera eye. Both modes of expression are sort of interludes to the main narratives but are so pervasive through the trilogy (thus 2/3 far) that "interludes" is an injustice. Sti-
ill, it is a total disservice to say that JDP's trilogy is shitty and the Newsreel and Camera Eye segments are uninteresting because on an absolute basis the experimentations with the collage form and structure are/were important and influential to narrative writing/development, creating layers and supplementing commentary/texture using "real" or outside sources. This boldness applies too to another USA device, Biographies, short sketches of true life notables JDP sprinkles in here and there. It is hard to imagine how these wild structures could not uncage possibilities for writers. It's just that, to me, it is not extremely interesting in and of itself. Some of it turned out to be incredibly moving, such as The Body of an American prose poem, but overall I am so-so on most of the rest of the execution.
The trilogy, or 2/3 in, is also not bad. The multiple narrative threads, ostensibly conventional but not exactly, are very compelling. Along with the drama, history lessons and travelogue, the social and political stuff is jam packed as hell too. And the usage of colloquial voices is world class. JDP today is likely the most lost of the lost generation writers, but well, rediscovering might have a golden payoff.
I must have mentioned before I fucking love Thomas Pynchon. Because I do. Pynchon aligns close to JDP with strong affinities to anarchists, wobblies, class conflict, cynicism, anti-authoritarianism, drifters, good for nothings, etc. Pynchon's latest, titled Against the Day, is set around or about JDP's trilogy, maybe a little earlier, though temporal hopscotching is a Pynchon trademark. Thinking of JDP, I wonder what brought me to him and his USA, and in fact, probably, connecting Pynchon with JDP isn't terribly a novel comparison, because, likely, a decent amount of reviews, discussions and criticisms of Against the Day mentions USA, which possibly steered me to see what Amazon.com had in store.
Anyway, I have been slogging through Against the Day, slowly, now momentarily stalled at about 20% in. It's really super, but, uh, I want to make sure to devote proper focus so I've been 2-timing with ancillary stock from my to-read pile for awhile. But, I bring up 1919 and Against the Day partly because, you know, thinking back a century or so ago (42nd Parallel spans 1900 until America's entry to WW1, 1919 continues through, uh, 1919, and Pynchon's novel is set roughly 1900 - 1920s), wow, those were harrowing times, chockful with messy turmoil, anxiety, and uncertainty, equally on the cusp of transformation and frustration; and for crystal sake, I am talking about the twenty or so years prior to the Black Days of late October 1929 collapse. The legions of poor, or less fortunate, mostly kicked about, got kicked around, and sought ways to keep their heads up. Which... brings us to today and wolfcrys of Great Depression Revisited. I mean seriously. Yeah, I mock the extent of the current financial calamity and the suffering or unnerved young professionals. But it ain't exactly like anyone is getting his or her head stomped by a Pinkerton crew, they never sleep.9
A JDP buddy, I assume, was modernist poet Ed E Cummings.10 EEC wrote since feeling is first which begins, "since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you," which kinda spells double toil and trouble for me taste testing her lip gloss - if that was my goal, and if that's still a popular cosmetic option. It is possible, at that moment, she indulged conversation not to hear my formulaic contrarian stance on the troubled economy, but instead was in the mood to commiserate the distressing days. Empathy, to start. Possible, sure, anything is possible.11 Inexplicable, thy name is woman.
EEC, in the same poem, goes on, "kisses are a better fate than wisdom." Too late now.
And, is is is. I have to stick with what got me to the game in the first place. I mean, does Coca Cola tinker with its fizz soda recipe for moody generational taste buds? Uh, aside with New Coke.12 So, presently,
irony? Since that ruinous conversation, where she marked me a cold hearted, supercilious silly, to my subsequent email entreaties for hangouts, - did she consult a brush off schematic to sort out the appropriate putdown? Then
again, the problem with being a tortoise-speed writer is that everything has changed. Shortlist of the best moviemakers today is Jia Zhangke.13 I underestimated him with my first exposure to his flick, Unknown Pleasure, but it really popped after mulling in my head a bit. Then the next movie of his I watched, as I was watching it, and immediately at the conclusion, I found I still shortchanged him, and that's from the revised opinion that he's the shit. Still Life is magic.
That too is a shared opinion by many, a search on Google should confirm craploads of links that if clicked through should have e-reams written on Jia Zhangke, his movies and how he is a great cinema poet of rabid globalization, disaffected life, profligate consumerism, real people, and so forth;14 in contrast, what is sparingly mentioned is the contributions of his often main female lead, Tao Zhao.15 I mean, she, after all, is the one giving her face/body/voice to shape Jia's ideas. She's not exactly super sexy, but she also is. Consider the critical/media attention paid in other similarly long-term collaborations, think Karina, think Vitti, Cheung, Hara, or Li, how in god's once green earth is Tao Zhao not elevated, if not higher, then to the same pedestal?16 The point is: please, someone write hosannas to her. Oh, foxy Stephane Audran was also really fantastic and pivotal for Chabrol during his (first) major hot streak.
About the changed situation: there was a lull of silence from her, that broke. Eventually she wrote back. I am nothing but not impersistent. It wasn't like the way it was before, but the way it was before is not easy to describe, nor all it was cracked up to be (nor - shouldn't need pointing out but I will - without pleasant moments; or, sans nostalgia's hue). BTW, I did not mean, if I did, to create an impression that my friend is a vacuous cheerleader for bourgeois aspirations. Because 1) she probably is not like that, instead rather grounded, kind of soulful, and possesses a cagey wit; 2) bourgeois aspirations are not awful, I dig status and status's trophies; and 3) really, I was not saying anything close to that. I will skip the implication of how she'd look with a cheerleader outfit, and sensational pom-pons.
I do not think no reply is the worst response to my surprise email, even if that was how it went down.17 No reply, obviously, is not doing anyone any favors either.18 I will not get into a I-said she-said thing with this; like many (most, all) failed relationships, ours failed, poorly.
Change. Time advanced; with my non-responsiveness, she called.
Oh why, now, why? Which is a drab, superficial way to approach the matter. And all a fallow sidetrack anyway because I bet she was boozed off her bored ass, sunk in some type of personal or professional malaise, and/or overbaked with nostalgia.
I answered my phone, and conversation. Resolution, however, eluded. In one sense there is no way the outcome could come out the way she envisioned without a fundamental capitulation of,
of my own sensibilities. I do not want to forget or forgive. In another sense, I have forgotten and forgiven - how can I not?, the particulars happen so long ago that they have all been swept out of mind. First off, from her perspective, I've said and'll say this: I am not worth it. I am not. That she somehow bothers to try attests to how the past warps/corrupts perception.19 I, also, was not.
Juxtapose my side of things: she is not worth it. At the moment, I'm at a pretty different place with not only a different, but also rather narrow, range of interests and priorities. And a nostalgia bender with her does not fit. Which has a couple of seeming unfair aspects. One, I probably do hang out with pals and sort of pals where they or their plans do not necessarily (or immediately) match my interest and priority scheme. Two, assuming some pals and sort of pals acquiesce or give no notice to my surly term laden socialization, it does not follow that this ex (or anyone else, for that matter) should conform. Third, admitting to a rather de minimis standard for the "fit" part, for her to return to the tame folds of my tolerable graces, all that may be required is judicious application of buzzwords/phrases. In which case, why not just tell her (or anyone else who so desires) what and how to say them and move the matter along? And of course, there is always the get-over-myself edict. I can
The trilogy, or 2/3 in, is also not bad. The multiple narrative threads, ostensibly conventional but not exactly, are very compelling. Along with the drama, history lessons and travelogue, the social and political stuff is jam packed as hell too. And the usage of colloquial voices is world class. JDP today is likely the most lost of the lost generation writers, but well, rediscovering might have a golden payoff.
I must have mentioned before I fucking love Thomas Pynchon. Because I do. Pynchon aligns close to JDP with strong affinities to anarchists, wobblies, class conflict, cynicism, anti-authoritarianism, drifters, good for nothings, etc. Pynchon's latest, titled Against the Day, is set around or about JDP's trilogy, maybe a little earlier, though temporal hopscotching is a Pynchon trademark. Thinking of JDP, I wonder what brought me to him and his USA, and in fact, probably, connecting Pynchon with JDP isn't terribly a novel comparison, because, likely, a decent amount of reviews, discussions and criticisms of Against the Day mentions USA, which possibly steered me to see what Amazon.com had in store.
Anyway, I have been slogging through Against the Day, slowly, now momentarily stalled at about 20% in. It's really super, but, uh, I want to make sure to devote proper focus so I've been 2-timing with ancillary stock from my to-read pile for awhile. But, I bring up 1919 and Against the Day partly because, you know, thinking back a century or so ago (42nd Parallel spans 1900 until America's entry to WW1, 1919 continues through, uh, 1919, and Pynchon's novel is set roughly 1900 - 1920s), wow, those were harrowing times, chockful with messy turmoil, anxiety, and uncertainty, equally on the cusp of transformation and frustration; and for crystal sake, I am talking about the twenty or so years prior to the Black Days of late October 1929 collapse. The legions of poor, or less fortunate, mostly kicked about, got kicked around, and sought ways to keep their heads up. Which... brings us to today and wolfcrys of Great Depression Revisited. I mean seriously. Yeah, I mock the extent of the current financial calamity and the suffering or unnerved young professionals. But it ain't exactly like anyone is getting his or her head stomped by a Pinkerton crew, they never sleep.9
A JDP buddy, I assume, was modernist poet Ed E Cummings.10 EEC wrote since feeling is first which begins, "since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you," which kinda spells double toil and trouble for me taste testing her lip gloss - if that was my goal, and if that's still a popular cosmetic option. It is possible, at that moment, she indulged conversation not to hear my formulaic contrarian stance on the troubled economy, but instead was in the mood to commiserate the distressing days. Empathy, to start. Possible, sure, anything is possible.11 Inexplicable, thy name is woman.
EEC, in the same poem, goes on, "kisses are a better fate than wisdom." Too late now.
And, is is is. I have to stick with what got me to the game in the first place. I mean, does Coca Cola tinker with its fizz soda recipe for moody generational taste buds? Uh, aside with New Coke.12 So, presently,
irony? Since that ruinous conversation, where she marked me a cold hearted, supercilious silly, to my subsequent email entreaties for hangouts, - did she consult a brush off schematic to sort out the appropriate putdown? Then
again, the problem with being a tortoise-speed writer is that everything has changed. Shortlist of the best moviemakers today is Jia Zhangke.13 I underestimated him with my first exposure to his flick, Unknown Pleasure, but it really popped after mulling in my head a bit. Then the next movie of his I watched, as I was watching it, and immediately at the conclusion, I found I still shortchanged him, and that's from the revised opinion that he's the shit. Still Life is magic.
That too is a shared opinion by many, a search on Google should confirm craploads of links that if clicked through should have e-reams written on Jia Zhangke, his movies and how he is a great cinema poet of rabid globalization, disaffected life, profligate consumerism, real people, and so forth;14 in contrast, what is sparingly mentioned is the contributions of his often main female lead, Tao Zhao.15 I mean, she, after all, is the one giving her face/body/voice to shape Jia's ideas. She's not exactly super sexy, but she also is. Consider the critical/media attention paid in other similarly long-term collaborations, think Karina, think Vitti, Cheung, Hara, or Li, how in god's once green earth is Tao Zhao not elevated, if not higher, then to the same pedestal?16 The point is: please, someone write hosannas to her. Oh, foxy Stephane Audran was also really fantastic and pivotal for Chabrol during his (first) major hot streak.
About the changed situation: there was a lull of silence from her, that broke. Eventually she wrote back. I am nothing but not impersistent. It wasn't like the way it was before, but the way it was before is not easy to describe, nor all it was cracked up to be (nor - shouldn't need pointing out but I will - without pleasant moments; or, sans nostalgia's hue). BTW, I did not mean, if I did, to create an impression that my friend is a vacuous cheerleader for bourgeois aspirations. Because 1) she probably is not like that, instead rather grounded, kind of soulful, and possesses a cagey wit; 2) bourgeois aspirations are not awful, I dig status and status's trophies; and 3) really, I was not saying anything close to that. I will skip the implication of how she'd look with a cheerleader outfit, and sensational pom-pons.
I do not think no reply is the worst response to my surprise email, even if that was how it went down.17 No reply, obviously, is not doing anyone any favors either.18 I will not get into a I-said she-said thing with this; like many (most, all) failed relationships, ours failed, poorly.
Change. Time advanced; with my non-responsiveness, she called.
Oh why, now, why? Which is a drab, superficial way to approach the matter. And all a fallow sidetrack anyway because I bet she was boozed off her bored ass, sunk in some type of personal or professional malaise, and/or overbaked with nostalgia.
I answered my phone, and conversation. Resolution, however, eluded. In one sense there is no way the outcome could come out the way she envisioned without a fundamental capitulation of,
of my own sensibilities. I do not want to forget or forgive. In another sense, I have forgotten and forgiven - how can I not?, the particulars happen so long ago that they have all been swept out of mind. First off, from her perspective, I've said and'll say this: I am not worth it. I am not. That she somehow bothers to try attests to how the past warps/corrupts perception.19 I, also, was not.
Juxtapose my side of things: she is not worth it. At the moment, I'm at a pretty different place with not only a different, but also rather narrow, range of interests and priorities. And a nostalgia bender with her does not fit. Which has a couple of seeming unfair aspects. One, I probably do hang out with pals and sort of pals where they or their plans do not necessarily (or immediately) match my interest and priority scheme. Two, assuming some pals and sort of pals acquiesce or give no notice to my surly term laden socialization, it does not follow that this ex (or anyone else, for that matter) should conform. Third, admitting to a rather de minimis standard for the "fit" part, for her to return to the tame folds of my tolerable graces, all that may be required is judicious application of buzzwords/phrases. In which case, why not just tell her (or anyone else who so desires) what and how to say them and move the matter along? And of course, there is always the get-over-myself edict. I can
rationalize or soften, to a certain degree, the rough edges of the iniquities, but this is still real complicated, like, high Hausdorff dimension shit, and really taxing for me, and I do not know, there is not much I can do, by way of a response, that would be entirely satisfying, for me or this ex. And, I am not giving up the impasse. And, there
is preciously little I can do to end that would be satisfying, for me or for
=======================
1. It's a way oversimplified recap of the market upheaval. Error filled too. Um, housing bubble; made worse by even looser credit (the Republicans' favorite boogie man - subprime loans to black folks) standards; which lead to bad mortgages bundled in derivative products; which hungry hedge funds and foreign money snapped up higher yields, partly thanks to credit agencies not accurately capturing the greater risk involved with the bad mortgages; which kind of folded back into itself as credit default insurance based on the bad (but not accessed as such) mortgages circulated more hungry money (from the insurance premiums) and reinforced the illusion of safety (these mortgage products are insured, yo); which in this parasitic relationship, it's difficult to say who is the host and who's the leech; then the first dropped domino, and mortgage quality deterioration questioned openly; in short order shitload of banks stuffed with all the bad mortgage products stirred a confidence crisis; and as the economy (and demand) was propped up by artificially high home prices before, well, no more propping; demand overall wanes; the banks/entities holding the structured bad debt are screwed one by one, the insurance companies (and banks) responsible for the credit default insurance are screwed one by one, and overall, the falling housing market gives way to a broad economic/demand slowdown (or downturn, or recession, or depression, or THE END OF TEH WORLD!1!!) so pretty much everyone is screwed; and while this is going on, banks de-leverage, essentially not lending money out but holding their own capital tightly in case 1) the bad mortgages they still hold blow up; 2) investors/clients/counterparties pull out their money from the banks; or 3) potential borrowers are not of sufficient credit quality (with the assumption that everyone is infec/sted with the bad mortgages and if not, the slower economy casts a deathly pall generally); so add on top of everything a nasty credit crunch/squeeze, which is a problem in the larger sense that financial institutions making loans for car/home/hdtv purchases are key greasers to move the economy, and in the immediate sense that financial institutions providing short term lending is how many companies finance their day to day operations; in other words, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!!1! Resolving the credit squeeze is a big deal because there needs to be day to day operations. The lower fed discount rates, fiscal stuff, and TARP are kind of making a difference, I kind of feel. Anyhoo, this, also, is likely more than a little inaccurate, and where it is not, still too broad and underpowered. 29 October 2008 Fed Reserve lowered the Fed Fund rate 50 basis from 1.5%. Echoed perhaps better here.
2. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee (words) and Walker Evans (photos). I think a WPA thing, but not 100% sure.
3. And moreover, young folks should get their personal finances/investments in order: retirement accounts, long term horizon, diversified portfolio, reinvesting dividends, etc.
4. Rudyard Kipling, If
5. Most usually credited to Baron Rothschild, one of them.
6. Warren Buffett
7. In order of reference: Langston Hughes, Hank Thoreau, and Tupac Shakur. Google the rest.
8. Proust's multi-volume novel deals and dwells a lot on memory and time, but it is not nostalgic, not at all.
9. Their motto. Actually, JDP's treatment on war is really spot on, like in The Body of an American mentioned above (and Pynchon similarly). And talk about modern times parallel, wars/conflicts have sense today? BTW, 42nd Parallel is the first, 1919 the middle child, and The Big Money finishes it.
10. Met in college, were roomies, travel pals, WW1 ambulatory drivers, and JDP was EEC's best man in the 2nd marriage.
3. And moreover, young folks should get their personal finances/investments in order: retirement accounts, long term horizon, diversified portfolio, reinvesting dividends, etc.
4. Rudyard Kipling, If
5. Most usually credited to Baron Rothschild, one of them.
6. Warren Buffett
7. In order of reference: Langston Hughes, Hank Thoreau, and Tupac Shakur. Google the rest.
8. Proust's multi-volume novel deals and dwells a lot on memory and time, but it is not nostalgic, not at all.
9. Their motto. Actually, JDP's treatment on war is really spot on, like in The Body of an American mentioned above (and Pynchon similarly). And talk about modern times parallel, wars/conflicts have sense today? BTW, 42nd Parallel is the first, 1919 the middle child, and The Big Money finishes it.
10. Met in college, were roomies, travel pals, WW1 ambulatory drivers, and JDP was EEC's best man in the 2nd marriage.
11. Would it make me a horrible person to tease regarding a visit from a bloody monthly guest?
12. 1985
13. Discounting, say, the nouvelle vague heavies Rohmer, Rivette & Chabrol who are 80 +/- and Manoel de Oliveira who will be on the old side of 100 soon. They all have made kickass movies recently but I have to figure they are just as likely to drop dead almost anytime soon.
14. You know, all that good stuff that goes with modernity, and China. Though it is common for a lot of directors to start out hot, which Jia has been scorchingly so. It's gonna be interesting to see how things go with him now that he has cleared out a lot of his pent up ideas and needs to put up fresh material.
15. She was not in Jia's first feature only.
16. Anna Karina - JL Godard, Monica Vitti - M Antonioni, Maggie Cheung - KW Wong, Setsuko Hara - Y Ozu & Gong Li -YM Zhang. Okay, there are also, of course, great collaboration with directors and male actors, but feel free, go ahead, have fun with list yourself. Tao is as good or better than the above-mentioned actors, deeper & more versatile in talent and performances. I mean, icon Karina, who is certainly good, I do not consider great, is MIA from key Godard flicks during that same span: the shot across the bow Breathless, Masculine Feminine & Contempt.
17. I'm gutless. I want to be a badass but, I dislike intentional cruelty. What am I withholding anyway: my inestimable friendship, a chance for her to do that closure thing, or the favorite cobbler emergency: a booty call? I toy with absolute crudeness and cruelty because it's fun, and because it's useful to explore, but I only wish I could dispense so, but never do.
12. 1985
13. Discounting, say, the nouvelle vague heavies Rohmer, Rivette & Chabrol who are 80 +/- and Manoel de Oliveira who will be on the old side of 100 soon. They all have made kickass movies recently but I have to figure they are just as likely to drop dead almost anytime soon.
14. You know, all that good stuff that goes with modernity, and China. Though it is common for a lot of directors to start out hot, which Jia has been scorchingly so. It's gonna be interesting to see how things go with him now that he has cleared out a lot of his pent up ideas and needs to put up fresh material.
15. She was not in Jia's first feature only.
16. Anna Karina - JL Godard, Monica Vitti - M Antonioni, Maggie Cheung - KW Wong, Setsuko Hara - Y Ozu & Gong Li -YM Zhang. Okay, there are also, of course, great collaboration with directors and male actors, but feel free, go ahead, have fun with list yourself. Tao is as good or better than the above-mentioned actors, deeper & more versatile in talent and performances. I mean, icon Karina, who is certainly good, I do not consider great, is MIA from key Godard flicks during that same span: the shot across the bow Breathless, Masculine Feminine & Contempt.
17. I'm gutless. I want to be a badass but, I dislike intentional cruelty. What am I withholding anyway: my inestimable friendship, a chance for her to do that closure thing, or the favorite cobbler emergency: a booty call? I toy with absolute crudeness and cruelty because it's fun, and because it's useful to explore, but I only wish I could dispense so, but never do.
18. In a poem, Auden offers, "... indifference is the least / We have to dread from man or beast." I don't quite get it, because indifference is pretty sucky. A takeaway nonetheless is that it is still dread-worthy. Not replying is like indifference, I think. Indifference or indifference plus? The poem is The More Loving One.
19. I will say that her efforts are halfhearted and inept (which is definitely not a diss on her), so maybe I am wrong, she applied the deserved attention to the matter.
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